Page 95 of High Frequency

“Pick up a two-way. I’m gonna walk Carmi home and be right behind you.”

Yeah, I’m not the only one worried.

Twenty-Seven

Sloane

I glance at my cell phone.

Shit.

Maybe I should’ve thought this through more, but I was so eager to do something productive. I feel like a kid caught with their hand in the cookie jar.

After talking to Sheriff Ewing earlier, I was leaving the office to grab a coffee across the street and figure out who to hit up for a ride, when I bumped into JD in the parking lot. He’d been at the motor vehicle department next door renewing his license and offered to drive me back to the ranch.

JD doesn’t talk a whole lot, so I had a chance to mull over this case. I was worried we weren’t peeling away the layers of this case quickly enough. Sometimes the wheels of justice turn too slowly, and although this task force has a broader reach, it also needs to run through proper channels, losing some of the urgency. It could give our subject a chance to cover his tracks or—God forbid—reoffend.

Finding out Michael Cedric has basically been off the grid for ten months or more was unexpected, but discovering those prints don’t belong to him really threw a wrench into the investigation.

Two perps? Or had we been barking up the wrong tree with Cedric? Did this mean we needed to start over?

No. Cedric had to be involved somehow. He owned the truck and inherited the cabin near the dumping ground. That could not have been a coincidence.

So when we got back to the ranch, I popped in to see my little girl, had a quick bite for lunch, and then went to see if I could borrow one of the ATVs.

My plan had been to head back up the trail and get a firsthand look at that cabin to see if there is any sign someone had been staying there recently. Just a little peek in the windows, see if there are any unlocked doors. I wasn’t going to enter but maybe I could poke my head inside, and if I’d seen something of interest, I could’ve perhaps sped up a search warrant for the place, since that’s in the FBI’s hands now.

The river crossing was a piece of cake, I only got a little wet, and the trail has been easy so far. I stopped near where Dan and Wolff pulled me from the gorge and—using a big stick I found for better balance—walked to the rock edge above where Emo found the remains.

There wasn’t anything left to see down below, except for trampled ferns. All the pale bones gone, and for a moment I just stood there in respect to the poor souls whose lives ended up at the bottom of the gorge.

I was about to turn around when my phone started vibrating in my pocket, almost making me jump.

Special Agent in Charge Bellinger’s number is displayed on my screen.

“Special Agent Bellinger, word of warning,” I start off. “Reception may be spotty where I am.”

“Detective Eckhart, I’m not sure what happened, … an issue with the files you sent me.”

“An issue?” I parrot.

“As in, … are glitches in the security feeds around the time markers you …. A section of six minutes in total is missing … three videos provided.”

“What? How is that even possible?”

“I was hoping … able to tell me.” He sounds none too pleased.

“Sir, I have no idea. I even made sure to send you the Google Drive link to the original files instead of the ones I downloaded to my computer to review.”

“Did … download them … last Wednesday?”

The wind is starting to pick up which seems to make reception even worse.

“On Tuesday, actually.”

“And those downloaded … the only ones you reviewed?”

“Yes, sir. Why?”

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